get you are to call me
Charles. Ursula, you have been crying; is that because Charlot spoilt
my mask?"

"No, Charles; but because Monsieur La Mothe must go to Valmy."

"Oh! Valmy?" he said dully. "I am never happy but somehow it is
Valmy, Valmy, Valmy! I think hell must be like Valmy."

"My son, you must not say such things."

"But what if I think them? Am I not to say what I think? And in hell
they hate, do they not? Monsieur Villon," he went on as the poet
re-entered the room, "they were talking of Valmy as I passed the
stair-head. Will you go and see if my father is dead a second time?
No! stay where you are, I hear some one coming."

Hastily crossing the room, Charles cowered close to Ursula de Vesc,
furtively catching at her skirts as if half ashamed of his fears and
yet drawn to the comfort of a strength greater than his own. All his
pride of possession and joyousness of childhood were gone, and instead
of wholesome laughter the terrors of a crushed spirit looked out of his
dull eyes. He was no longer Roland, but the son of Louis of France.
Laying her arm about him in the old attitude of protection which had so
stirred La Mothe's heart, she held him close to her, the anxiety of her
watchfulness no less evident than his own. The darkness of her dread
had deepened tenfold. Valmy could bring no good to Amboise, no good to
Stephen La Mothe.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE ARREST

There was no long delay. Passing Villon with a single, keen,
scrutinizing glance, a man, a stranger to them all, entered, pausing a
yard or two within the room. Four or five troopers showed behind him
in the doorway, but made no attempt to cross the threshold. All were
dusty, travel-stained, and with every sign of having ridden both far
and fast. Their leader alone was bareheaded, his sheathed sword caught
up in a gauntleted hand.

"In the King's name, Monseigneur," he said, turning to the Dauphin with
a salute which halted evenly between respect and contempt. But the
Dauphin only shrank closer to Ursula de Vesc and it was La Mothe who
answered.

"You are from Valmy?"

"By order of the King."

"With despatches?"

"With instructions, and," he paused, motioning to the open doorway
behind him, then added, "means to carry them out."

"What are your instructions?"

"To arrest Monsieur Stephen La Mothe----"

"Arrest Monsieur La Mothe? Why? On what ground--on what charge?"
Sweeping the Dauphin aside Ursula de Ves